IMDb Introduces ‘F for Female’ Rating to Represent Women in Film

So far, the online database has tagged 21,800 films with the new rating.

The Internet Movie Database has added a new “F” rating for films that are directed or written by a woman or that include significant female characters. The new IMDb rating was created by Holly Tarquini, Executive Director at UK’s Bath Film Festival, as a way to highlight the roles of women in the film industry. “The F-rating is intended to make people talk about the representation of women on and off screen,” Tarquini told Bath Chronicle.

According to the paper, the rating has been adopted by 40 UK movie theaters and festivals and IMDb has already tagged 21,800 films with the “F” rating. Some films have been given a “Triple F” rating for being written, directed, and starring women. Current picks include “American Honey,” Disney’s “Frozen,” “Metropolis,” “Bridget Jones’s Baby,” and “The Girl on The Train,” among others.

“It’s exciting when new organizations decide to join us in shining a light both on the brilliant work women are doing in film and on how far the film industry lags behind most other industries when it comes to providing equal opportunities to women,” Tarquini said of IMDb adopting the rating.

She added, “Our real goal is to reach the stage when the F rating is redundant because 50 per cent of the stories we see on screen are told by and about film’s unfairly under-represented half of the population — women.”